“I still think he’s a 21-year-old quarterback who came out as a true junior,” Dominik said of Freeman. “You’d like for him to grow and mature into his role and not be forced into it.”

If the fanatics would have been paying attention shortly after the Bucs drafted Freeman, former Buccaneers quarterback, turned personnel man Doug Williams let the cat out of the bag when he said the team would have drafted Mark Sanchez f they were looking for a quarterback to start right away.

Dominik also said the race between Slugo and McCown is currently too close to call and believes that it wont be settled until the end of the pre-season.

“It should be very wide open,” Dominik said. “The competition still is ongoing. The important thing about what they did in the OTA’s as a group is that they got a foundation of the offense and showed an ability to grasp it mentally and then go out and operate it on the field. That’s why we’re anxious to put the pads on and see how they do in the (preseason) games.”

For the sake of contiunity and timing, hopefully a starter is announced before the end of pre-season so who ever wins the job can take more reps with the first team offense to get timing down and be in better sync with the receivers.